Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

"A hundred strokes to make it shine," Mary Joy told her daughter Anne when she was five and old enough to start brushing her hair herself. "A woman's hair is her crowning glory."

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

The comb was a standard black plastic one emblazoned with the golden symbol for Project Utopia, given out in the toiletries bag that every new nova received on entering the Rashoud facility. It was one without a handle, with thick teeth at one end and fine teeth at the other.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Plastic slipped through heavy strands of hair wet from the shower. The rooms at the Rashoud facility didn't have baths, much like hospital wards, though at least each room had its own. Anne wasn't sure she could handle sharing with another person.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

The mirror showed a face like-but-unlike the one she had before. It was her face, but perfected. Like Jesus would have done when He came for the Rapture and the living saints.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

That dream had been so vivid. She believed that the Rapture was the perfect solution to her problems; in the light and love of Christ, her father would accept Carlos as a living saint and she could have everything.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

But something had gone wrong. Was it her selfish desire to want her parents to accept the man of her dreams? Carlos was handsome, intelligent, funny and occasionally firm; he treated Anne like she had a mind and could be a partner in his ministry. What more could she want?

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Instead of being lifted up to Heaven, Anne found herself hovering above the street, stark naked and glowing softly. Her father had immediately disowned her as a sinful whore nova demon and her mother, ever obedient, wasn't too slow behind him. With nowhere else to go, she went with the Utopian people to the Rashoud facility.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Carlos was facing his own crisis. His ministry accepted that novas were just like any other sinner to be saved by the Grace of God, but how could he be secondary to a woman? Anne tried to tell him that she would follow where he led, but the eyes of men and women looked past him whenever she was around, settling on her face and body. They listened to her more. Which was wrong.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Anne was still dressing modestly. Loose, elbow-length blouses and ankle-length skirts with hose underneath as her father decreed. Her brown hair was always neatly plaited to her waist and the only products she used was a scentless deodorant and soap. The colours were pastels and browns, which suited her and were properly subdued besides.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

"Anne, are you in there?" It was Juanita, one of the nurses attached to the facility. "Your brother's here to see you."

She placed the comb neatly on the small, prefabricated shelf in every room just above the steel bed with white cotton sheets.

Only fifty strokes. Would her hair shine less?

There were so many questions and so few answers. What was she to do?